i am having difficulty thinking of titles for these mini-posts...

yeah, i am suffering from sleep deprivation, which i intend to correct today..

its just been so crazy busy.. but it is satisfying certainly.. :) dare i say that i am contented? (for now)

Its been a really wonderful day. Its always so much fun to meet up with older friends you've not seen in a while and find you can still joke and laugh abt anything and everything :)

And though it gets lonely sometimes when everyone is overseas, its great when everyone is back cuz you hear so many more stories and you miss them more :)

Bye Bye...

this is gonna be a somewhat shorter post because, i dun feel like writing so much. haha. well firstly, i have a new phone! well, most pple who have met up with me recently would know, but this is just an fyi.. ;) so dun be too shocked when u see me. after much contemplation, i decided its camera is actually fairly good, but as with most camera phones, it is good only in good lighting conditions :p

oh to the post proper! the first few posts document various get-togethers for my dear friend gary, before he left for sydney for further studies! so basically, the first gathering was on a really early sunday morning, where we had brunch! the breakfast at Cafe Cartel was surprising good, esp the pancakes.. :) so much better than mac's hot cakes. and the bacon and sausages and eggs (well tt's the whole thing isn't it?) were all good. i was so groggy though, seeing that i played mahjong with aud and mich and ty just the night before!

anw, our gatherings are always in siglap seeing tt we all stay 5-10mins away from there. well, i used to stay there, but whatever, its still quite near now.. ;)

the next time we met was just a few days later. well, it was mainly cuz me and cass had to leave really early from the brunch thing, mainly because the timing kept on changing (it was supposed to be a dinner, then a tea, then a lunch.. ..) and we had other plans on. haha. so we went to this bah kut teh place opposite central! i must say i quite like the soup - its the peppery clear-ish once (as opposed to the darker sort). they have another sort of meat, tt is not the rib sort.. and it was far more tender.. :D well, i must say it was not bad, but i still prefer the one in Joo Chiat :P

after tt, we headed down to TCC, where we heard the most shocking news from someone!! its too bad we're all so busy.. its always great to hang out with you guys.. :) the nonsensical conversations are always relaxing, and yet, the fact that we're all doing such different things gives me a better perspective of what's happening around, else, i am certain i'd be trapped in the myopic world of medicine. haha.

and then we had pot luck at ra's place. arrgh, there were 7 of us. look at this huge pile of food. yes, my camera had failed to capture the full extent of all the food. the long john's silver from kat was seriously scary. i gobbled down the shrimps coated with cheese, but seriously!! too much fish and chicken..

my contribution.. i am pleased to say the ice cream was really good.. haha :D really must buy the durian flavored one.. i tried one tiny spoon at the shop and kat and shi commented, what's tt durian smell when i opened my mouth in the car. POTENT.

finally, the few gatherings cummulated in a send off at the airport, at the new, but really empty and seemingly underutilized T3!


haha, hope yr flight on the A380 was good.. and hopefully u get some sort of internet access soon!

ok, now, some random food pictures to get out of the way!

happened to walk past this shop one day after a treat from al at Aston's. the shop is called obolo, and it is a patesserie! the cakes look really nice, and there are many colorful macaroons as well. so i bought 2 to try since i had heard tt the cakes were good. the lady at the counter recommended me the cake on the right, and i decided to try the cake on the left. the one on the left is a mango passionfruit cheese cake, and the one on the right is a hazelnut, dark chocolate crunch cake or sth. (i think i am fabricating). but yes, the recommended hazelnut cake was excellent! :) its moist, the flavor is strong, and yeah, it was just delicious. i should try the other recommended stuff when i do go back. i must say the unrecommended cake wasn't tt good though - normalish.

and this was tea at the royal copenhagen at taka. i've always wanted to try it cuz it looks nice, but i was quite disappointed.

this shrimp thing was not bad, claire had it. it tasted like soup!

my green tea cake was dry and crumbly, and the taste wasn't tt strong though it looked so green. what's worse was aud's hot chocolate. it tasted more like lukewarm milk with a tinge of cocoa powder. BAD. the water was good though, it has a nice strawberry taste :)

not satisfied with the green tea disaster, tt very same day at night, while having drinks at coffee club, i discovered tt i could get a free cake with a $30 bill. so i ordered a green tea tiramisu. mmmm, this was 1000x better. nice and moist, with azuki beans on the inside. and u can actually taste green tea.. :)

last meal of the blog post.. this was a fairly recent food trip to Blue Lobster Seafood Restaurant. I have been craving for this ever since mich and claire went there recently, reminding me of the wonderful meal i had there a year back. we had the premium set lunch, which was really cheap at $15+++ (cuz they had a 1 for 1 offer!). on top of tt, it was $1 oyster day!! :D

the starter was a crab bisque. it was excellent! chunky pieces of crab with a nicely toasted foccacia, and flavorful soup.

then came the main course. i had charcoal grilled barramundi. well, i think the chef got it mixed up and pan fried mine instead, but it was still excellent :) mmmm, and what was great was tt the fish was so fresh and tasty! i seldom get to eat this australian fish.. :p

we ordered a dozen canadian oysters among the 3 of us (cuz aud doesn't have slimy things). omg, it was so so good.. :D excellent texture and taste. so so fresh. i love the milky taste of canadian oysters.. :) oh yeah, look at the super huge one nearest to the screen, it was such a delight biting into tt!

finally came the desserts. the cake at the corner was really good, and so was the panna cotta. i have no idea what the pink thing is, but it was a really unique tasting item haha. raspberry with pistachios and i dunno what else. the crumble was not bad, but the crust wasn't as good as crumbly as i would have liked.

all in all, a fantastic meal, at a very good price! :) definitely worth going back to.. though maybe next time, i'd have dinner there. haha. the other stuff (esp octopus and lobster) are even better :D

PS: all these food pix were taken with my phone, not bad rite? ;)

yup, i promise an update this weekend hopefully. i've just been way too busy these past 2 weeks.. too many pple flying in and out of this country, its quite difficult to even catch most of them.

sigh, all these lucky pple travelling elsewhere to study. i'm still stuck here after 22 years... ...